Cybercrime City Mysteries

January 4, 2025 10:52 AM

Nostalgic for Tex Murphy or just enjoy a bit of self-awareness in your protagonists? Cybercrime City Mysteries is a short and sweet series aping the style of the FMV adventure games of the 90s. With a twist.
posted by Lorc (7 comments total)

To keep my editorialising to the comments-
I was surprised to see these videos sitting on double-digit views. They felt like something that should have its own fandom wiki and tumblr subculture.
Surprisingly quality production (within retro standards). But mostly I enjoyed how much they did not waste my time and jumped right into things, delivering complete stories in a handful of minutes.
posted by Lorc at 10:58 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed every second of this, up to and including the thematically appropriate third-act twist.
posted by Lemkin at 11:16 AM on January 4

I sure expected this series to be longer. I enjoyed it real good though!
posted by aubilenon at 1:29 PM on January 4

This was originally made for internet veteran Channel 101 (more old videos here, TONS more old videos here, use this as your guide - use the orange buttons to navigate).

The website hasn't been updated recently, but it IS still going, and pilot episodes (5 minutes or less) can be submitted via this form or to [e-mail]. As per Sevan Najarian on their Discord, "Keep making pilots, the show WILL go on."

Notes for submitters: Anything five minutes or less is acceptable. If self-cancelling, you can go over five minutes. If you get voted through, you'll be expected to submit the next episode in as little as a month (this has caught out multiple creators, but at least two shows have made last-minute next episodes afterward).

Wikipedia article
Linktree
posted by BiggerJ at 3:07 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]

Thanks. I'm old enough to remember Channel 101 but hadn't made the connection.
posted by Lorc at 1:57 AM on January 5

Side note, can we please spell out acronyms? For those wondering, I'm pretty sure FMV stands for Full Motion Video
posted by treepour at 11:49 AM on January 5 [1 favorite]

Some more Channel 101 info: the guidelines on the Submit page pre-date YouTube - and, largely, the entire notion of short-form online video content, which Channel 101 had a hand in creating. Also, stuff you've already posted online can be submitted, as long as it doesn't have too many views already.
posted by BiggerJ at 1:25 AM on January 6